The Grenada gazette. (Grenada, Miss.) 1885-18??, 1887-07-09

1 NAvSo
| Such c~easeless wandering only ends
with tho grave. San Fra"cisco C"roh'
! icle.
THE womb "cRANK"
Etymoloxy Of . colloqulal E1presslon Of
venerable Standing.
The word crank, denoting a within.
steal person, is not slang but an Amer.
lean colloquialism that came into sud.
den prominence in 1881, when the
New York Herald saw fit to account
for the murderer of President Garfield
by calling him "a crank" This ap'
~plication Of the word. however, was
not new. Mrs. Stoves '.Dred," vol.
l., page 1877 published in 1850. makes
one Of her characters say: II you
strong electioners didn't think you
were among the elect You wouldn't DO
so crank lset] about it." Here the
word means opinionative. narrow,
capricious. uncompromising, or alb
surd. Carlyle gives three synonyms
In the phrase 'dim Of vision, violent
Of temper, subject to sudden cranks
motions or conceits]." Milton uses
the word pleasantly in the Allegro
about 1885:
Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful iollity.
Quips and cranks Sudden ccnceltsl and wantos
wiles,
Mods and bccks and wreathed smiles.
In his Divorce of 1914 he uses the
word less pleasantly. remarking that
the ways of the Lord are. not full Of
franks Sudden and rotary motions]
and contradictions" The foundation
of all these meanings is the crank in
mechanics, being a combination Of a
shaft to be turned by a web fastened ia
it in a boss and turned by a pin or wrist
(sec L. H. Knights Mechanical Die
%tionary," vol. i, pages $500. Persons
who have turned the crank Of a deep
well, and let go too soon, will under
stand the meaning Of obstinacy. A
crank is used in children's shows, and
accounts also for the expression
"a crank ship''-that is, a ship
liable to roll over as if turned
by a crank. Longfellow uses this ex-
preston in his Building Of the Ship
20. where he speaks of 1.-THE Great
Harry. crank and tall" which his ship
builder is not going to copy. The En-.
cyclopadic Dictionary is %curiously
mistaken in giving the word in this
passage the sense of mighty and strong.
The idea of whimsicality is suggested
by the novel sights produced in petty
shows by the mere turning of a crank.
In Shakespeare the idea Of winding or
zigzag motions only is associated with
the crank: ''The cranks and offices OF
man" (Coriol, i. l, 14l); [thc hare]
''cranks and crosses with a thousand
doubtless Venus aud Adonis, 6s2);
and ''see how this v comes me
eranking in" u Henry ~. iii, l, 9s).
All applications Of the word seem to
emanate from the Anglo-Saxon verb
cringan or crincan, which means
to turn or wind, and was
used also of persons dying in
battle because they writhe. A
crank wit is a nimble wit or a wit
that turns round quickly. Spenser,
speaking OF "a cooke or his dunghill
Growing crank" meant growing with
a brisk turning Of the head. The die
tionaries without an exception are un-
satisfactory on this rather simple word,
which recurs in cringe Ito turn a lit
tle) and crinkle Ito twist slightly.
But all difficulties cease by beginning
with the original Saxon meaning-to
turn or to wind. If there are apple
cations or combinations of the word
not thus explained. which are they:
Judge H. W. Blodgett of Chicago
has recently ruled, in Walker VS..
Tribune company. in the United
States Circuit Court, hat ''to call a
person "a crank Is not in itself action
able" The learned Judge adds that
cranks lis not a word which, by its
common meaning in the English Ian
guage, imports that a person has been
guilty of crime. = The word has nc
necessary %defamatory meaning" The
plaintiff, a lawyer, urged that by call
ing him a crank the Chicago Tribune
had placed him in the same category
as the assassin Of President Garfield.
Judge Blodgett rejected this argumen,
by quoting the definition of the term al
given in the Imperial Dictionary. This
decision is justified by the history Of
the word as just presented and by it.
origin. Guiteau was called a crank II
the sense that he was a fool Of one idea,
which upset his judgment and prevent
ed him from acting IS should person'
whose minds are not twisted" VIII,